The Average Rent in Boston, by Neighborhood

The Hub city of Boston is a metropolis of many faces. Regions along the Freedom Trail from Bunker Hill to Boston Common are steeped in history.

Towering office buildings in Back Bay and Downtown gleam in the New England sunlight. Students from lofty colleges wander the campuses in Cambridge and Chestnut Hill. Sports fans fill the streets before and after games in Fenway-Kenmore and the West End.

From Southie to the South End, the Italian bistros of North End and pizzerias in Jeffries Point, Boston College to Boston University, the city between the Neponset and the Charles is a sprawling and diverse one. And Boston’s wide variety of neighborhood types bring a huge variety of rental price levels to all apartment sizes.

So which areas of Boston are the most affordable and which are the most expensive for rents and leases?

What is the average rent in Boston?

Make no mistake, Boston is not an inexpensive town as a renter. The average rent in Boston for a one-bedroom apartment is among the most expensive in the country at $3,480 for a one-bedroom apartment. The Hub is near the top for most expensive for all average apartment size options including studio apartments and two-bedroom units, as well.

The most and least expensive neighborhoods in Boston

With few exceptions, the most expensive neighborhoods in Boston are in or surrounding South Boston (Southie), closest to Downtown (including Downtown) or along the Charles River south shore where the cost of living is also highest.

But the further west along the Charles you get, expect rents to decrease. That’s where the least expensive Boston regions lie, creating a westerly path along the Massachusetts Turnpike. As well, the cheapest apartments also stretch south towards exurbs like Dorchester and Quincy.

Rents throughout the most expensive neighborhoods all hover north of $4,000 a month for an average one-bedroom apartment, and the least costly ones come in under an average of $2,500 monthly rent.

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The most expensive Boston neighborhoods

1. Seaport District $3,712

2. D Street – West Broadway $3,684

3. Harrison Lenox $3,389

4. Columbia Point $3,016

5. Fenway – Kenmore – Audubon Circle – Longwood $2,943

6. Brook Farm $2,865

7. East Watertown $2,855

8. Prudential – St. Botolph $2,845

9. Downtown $2,842

10. South End $2,818

The blocks around Downtown and Back Bay lie underneath towering office buildings and feature happening nightlife and trendy dining. And as such, they are regions that carry some of Boston’s highest rent prices. But the top two most expensive Boston neighborhoods lie on the other side of Fort Point Channel.

The most expensive neighborhoods in Boston sit at the top end of Southie, with the Seaport District at number one. The trendy young professional neighborhood across Boston Harbor from the airport tops out the city at a monthly average of $4,985 for a one bedroom. That’s an increase of 2.2 percent from a year ago when it was also the priciest in the city. The same is so for number two D Street/West Broadway, a locals neighborhood melded with Seaport, also number two last year.

Prudential – St. Botolph and Back Bay, south of the Charles, come in ranked third and fourth with rents of $4,596 and $4,378, respectively, also equal ranks from a year ago. Downtown Boston ($4,350) and its location neighbor the Financial District ($4,206) round out the top six. Downtown saw the eighth-largest increase from last year, up nearly 6.5 percent.

There are some literal outliers as well. St. Elizabeth’s and East Watertown, both far west, rank eighth and ninth most expensive despite their distance from downtown. St. Elizabeth’s, home to its eponymous Medical Center and BC Brighton, had the steepest rent increase. Up 85.5 percent from twelve months ago, St. Elizabeth’s was in fact the sixth cheapest neighborhood last year.

The least expensive Boston neighborhoods

1. St. Elizabeth’s* $2,318

2. Back Bay West $2,350

3.West End $2,375

4. Watertown West End $2,377

5. Oak Square* $2,385

6. Beacon Hill* $2,463

7. Shawmut $2,538

8. Sudbury $2,623

9. Fenway – Kenmore $2,703

10. Central $2,748

*May not be a true market representation due to insufficient inventory

As established, Boston is one of America’s most expensive rental cities. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find quality, affordable housing in attractive areas. But doing so may require some flexibility in proximity and distance from Downtown, Southie and Back Bay.

The top two cheapest regions in greater Boston straddle the I-90 corridor. The head of the list is good news for Harvard students. North Allston, also known as Lower Allston, is bounded on three sides by the Charles River and the Mass Pike on the fourth, separating it from the rest of Boston. Its physical isolation has allowed it to bond with Cambridge to its north and Harvard to expand into the neighborhood. Rents in the neighborhood are college student-friendly at just $1,245 a month. That’s an over 50 percent decrease from a year ago, the sharpest decline in all of Boston.

Also out west is the downtown core of the Watertown suburb at number two. The neighborhood on the Charles offers satellite city rents of just $1,878 monthly. The third cheapest is also a college district. The neighborhood of Commonwealth is a skinny strip running above Brookline from Allston at its north end down to Chestnut Hill. Average monthly rents of just over two grand – dropping nearly a third from a year ago – surround the Boston College campus at the neighborhood’s southern tip.

The region’s two lowest rent neighborhoods last year – Greater Mattapan (up 54 percent) and Center Village (up 36 percent) – saw steep increases in rent prices resulting in a fall to eighth and ninth this year. The cheapest rents close to downtown are in the North End, ranking eleventh with average rents of $2,703 a month.

Average rent prices in Boston neighborhoods

You can get a better picture of the average rent in Boston and its surrounding regions by checking out the full list of neighborhoods below.

*May not be a true market representation due to insufficient inventory

Find your Boston neighborhood

Despite its size, Boston is still a growing city, and a booming market for renters on a budget even compared to other cities in the Northeast. Industries from a number of sectors fuel the local economy including state government, history and tourism, old-school financial corporations, high tech as well as higher education and health care.

With all this going for Boston, the problem isn’t finding a great neighborhood, it’s narrowing it down to just one. Whatever neighborhood you choose, from studio apartments to multi-room rentals, check out the available apartments for rent in Boston on Apartment Guide.

Rent prices are based on a rolling weighted average from Apartment Guide and Rent.com’s multifamily rental property inventory of one-bedroom apartments. The rent information included in this article is used for illustrative purposes only. The data contained herein do not constitute financial advice or a pricing guarantee for any apartment.